"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 20 - Web of Sand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

thing of the heart. Am I not right, Earl?"

Dumarest nodded, making no comment as he watched the
jewel cupped in the woman's hands. It no longer looked gray and
dull like flawed glass but had gained an inner luminescence as,
triggered by the metabolic heat and stimulation of flesh, it
responded in vibrant light and sound. The glow became brighter,
splintered in a sudden mass of broken rainbows which filled the
salon with swaths of drifting color, a kaleidoscopic brilliance
which gave the chairs, the tables and fittings a transient and
enticing magic. And as with the furnishings so those who stood
bathed in the splendor now streaming from the jewel; Kemmer,
suddenly no longer the gross trader he was but now a figure of
dignity as the harsh and somber shape of Carl Santis the
mercenary took on hints of a chivalry he had never known from a
tradition he had never suspected. Mettalus, the girl standing
before him, Dumarest who now wore a shattered spectrum to
decorate his face and hair and clothing. But of them all Marta
was the most transfigured.

She stood like a priestess of some esoteric cult, hands lifted
now, the effulgence of the jewel bathing her uplifted face and
robbing it of the scars and marks of time. The skin had
smoothed, the mesh of lines marring the flesh at the corners of
the eyes lost in flattering glows. The lips had gained fullness, the
chin liberated from sagging tissue, the bones of cheeks
prominent above exotic concavities. The nose had thinned,
become arrogant in haughty affirmation of youthful pride, age
and dissolution stripped away to show the girl she once had
been. The hair, too, had changed, now displaying glints and
glimmers of vibrant hues, of sheens and enticing softness.

The light gave her beauty and she drank it and returned it
through the touch of her hands, the emitted nervous tensions of
her body which stimulated the symbiote she held into a higher
plane of existence.

Chai Teoh gasped as it began to sing. "Grish! What—"

"Be silent, girl!" Santis rasped the command. "Be still!" His
tone held the snap of one accustomed to obedience, but more
imperious in its demand for attention was the song of the jewel
itself. It lifted, keening, undulating, a note of crystalline purity
which penetrated skin and bone and muscle to impact on the
nerves and brain and the raw stuff of emotion itself. A song
without words and without a predictable pattern but one which
held love and hope and joy and all the promise there ever could
be and all the happiness ever imagined.

"God!" Kemmer's whisper was a prayer as he stood, tears